Home
 » ISP News » 
Sponsored Links

Coventry Named Best of 16 UK Cities for Mobile Network Performance

Friday, Mar 15th, 2019 (9:39 am) - Score 1,180

RootMetrics (IHS Markit) has today published the results from their H2 2018 study into 4G and 3G mobile network performance across 16 of the United Kingdom’s “most populated metropolitan markets” (cities), which found that Coventry and Leicester were the best. Sadly London and Birmingham were the worst.

As usual the company’s testing sought to mimic how consumers use their mobile phones, which meant they used Samsung Galaxy S8 and S9 smartphones purchased from operator stores. After that the testing was conducted using services from Three UK, Vodafone, O2 and EE (BT) during the day and night while their testers walked and drove around the UK’s cities.

The results were then processed in order to produce a ranking across six different categories: overall performance, network reliability, network speed, data performance, call performance and text performance (i.e. RootScores – rated up to a maximum of 100 points). Sadly today’s report doesn’t tell us how many tests were conducted.

Advertisement

Overall Coventry replaced Belfast at the top by offering the best overall performance (scoring 97 out of 100) and consistently ranking near the top in five out of six categories. Meanwhile Birmingham continues its trend of low rankings, finishing last for overall performance, network reliability and call performance. The market’s low score was partially due to relatively slow speeds from O2 and Three UK, as well as a high proportion of dropped calls.

Meanwhile the UK’s largest metropolitan market, London, typically continues to finish near the bottom in several categories. London did however make one notable improvement since last time, improving its rank in the text category from 15th to 5th. While most operators’ speeds have also improved since the H1 2018 study, although call reliability in London remained relatively poor compared to what was observed in other markets.

Kevin Hasley, RootMetrics Head of Product, said:

“In an ever-growing connected world, the demand for fast and reliable mobile experiences is both business critical and vital for consumers. What our latest set of data reveals is that in some of the largest cities in the UK, network operators have to work harder than ever to meet the increasing demands of consumers.

The introduction of 5G technology will offer opportunities for the UK’s major cities to liberate themselves from underachieving network performance. Highly populated cities will be the first to deploy the small cell infrastructure required to deliver 5G coverage. As a result, the operators should be able to deliver the strong performance that users expect in major economic areas.

Reliability is important for consumer satisfaction. Coventry, Manchester and Leicester all performed well and consumers and businesses should reap the benefits in those cities.”

We’ve pasted the results below and you can read their report online (here).

Overall Performance Scores

Advertisement

Market Population rank Overall score Overall rank
Coventry 14 97.0 1
Leicester 13 96.9 2
Manchester 2 96.2 3
Belfast 15 96.1 4
Leeds and Bradford 3 96.1 5
Glasgow 5 95.9 6
Cardiff 10 95.6 7
Liverpool 6 95.4 8
Hull 16 95.3 9
Sheffield 7 95.1 10
Nottingham 11 95.0 11
Newcastle 8 94.9 12
Bristol 9 94.8 13
Edinburgh 12 94.2 14
London 1 93.8 15
Birmingham 4 93.7 16

Network Reliability Scores

Market Population rank Reliability score Reliability rank
Coventry 14 99.0 1
Manchester 2 99.0 2
Leicester 13 98.8 3
Belfast 15 98.5 4
Leeds and Bradford 3 98.3 5
Glasgow 5 98.3 6
Cardiff 10 98.0 7
Hull 16 98.0 8
Newcastle 8 97.8 9
Sheffield 7 97.8 10
Bristol 9 97.6 11
London 1 97.4 12
Liverpool 6 97.3 13
Edinburgh 12 97.3 14
Nottingham 11 97.3 15
Birmingham 4 96.6 16

Service Speed Scores

Market Population rank Speed score Speed rank
Leicester 13 90.8 1
Liverpool 6 90.6 2
Coventry 14 90.3 3
Leeds and Bradford 3 89.0 4
Glasgow 5 88.6 5
Belfast 15 88.6 6
Nottingham 11 88.4 7
Cardiff 10 88.3 8
Sheffield 7 87.2 9
Hull 16 87.2 10
Manchester 2 86.9 11
Bristol 9 86.6 12
Newcastle 8 86.0 13
Birmingham 4 85.5 14
Edinburgh 12 85.1 15
London 1 82.7 16

Data Performance Scores

Market Population rank Data score Data rank
Leicester 13 95.9 1
Coventry 14 95.8 2
Liverpool 6 95.6 3
Leeds and Bradford 3 95.1 4
Glasgow 5 95.1 5
Belfast 15 94.9 6
Cardiff 10 94.8 7
Nottingham 11 94.5 8
Sheffield 7 94.4 9
Manchester 2 94.4 10
Hull 16 94.4 11
Bristol 9 93.9 12
Newcastle 8 93.9 13
Birmingham 4 93.2 14
Edinburgh 12 93.2 15
London 1 92.3 16

Call Performance Scores

Advertisement

Market Population rank Call score Call rank
Manchester 2 98.4 1
Coventry 14 98.3 2
Leicester 13 98.0 3
Belfast 15 97.5 4
Leeds and Bradford 3 97.0 5
Glasgow 5 96.7 6
Cardiff 10 96.2 7
Hull 16 96.0 8
Newcastle 8 95.9 9
Sheffield 7 95.7 10
Bristol 9 95.6 11
Edinburgh 12 95.2 12
London 1 95.1 13
Nottingham 11 95.1 14
Liverpool 6 94.7 15
Birmingham 4 93.9 16

Text Performance Scores

Market Population rank Text score Text rank
Manchester 2 99.2 1
Leicester 13 99.0 2
Liverpool 6 99.0 3
Coventry 14 98.9 4
London 1 98.8 5
Leeds and Bradford 3 98.7 6
Birmingham 4 98.7 7
Hull 16 98.7 8
Nottingham 11 98.7 9
Cardiff 10 98.7 10
Glasgow 5 98.6 11
Sheffield 7 98.6 12
Belfast 15 98.6 13
Bristol 9 98.5 14
Edinburgh 12 98.2 15
Newcastle 8 98.0 16
Mark-Jackson
By Mark Jackson
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook and .
Search ISP News
Search ISP Listings
Search ISP Reviews
Comments
1 Response

Advertisement

  1. Avatar photo Michael V says:

    I’ve always preferred Root Metrics over the others. They go into more detail & categories. I usually let the app run when I’m going places that may not have Three mapped or that I haven’t mapped in a while.

Comments are closed

Cheap BIG ISPs for 100Mbps+
Community Fibre UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
Vodafone UK ISP Logo
Vodafone £24.00 - 26.00
150Mbps
Gift: None
NOW UK ISP Logo
NOW £24.00
100Mbps
Gift: None
Virgin Media UK ISP Logo
Virgin Media £25.00
132Mbps
Gift: None
Sky UK ISP Logo
Sky £26.00
145Mbps
Gift: None
Large Availability | View All
Cheapest ISPs for 100Mbps+
Gigaclear UK ISP Logo
Gigaclear £17.00
200Mbps
Gift: None
Brsk UK ISP Logo
Brsk £19.00
150Mbps
Gift: None
Community Fibre UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
Hey! Broadband UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
YouFibre UK ISP Logo
YouFibre £23.99
150Mbps
Gift: None
Large Availability | View All
The Top 15 Category Tags
  1. FTTP (5982)
  2. BT (3630)
  3. Politics (2700)
  4. Business (2420)
  5. Openreach (2400)
  6. Building Digital UK (2323)
  7. Mobile Broadband (2124)
  8. FTTC (2077)
  9. Statistics (1887)
  10. 4G (1794)
  11. Virgin Media (1745)
  12. Ofcom Regulation (1568)
  13. Fibre Optic (1462)
  14. Wireless Internet (1456)
  15. FTTH (1385)
Promotion
Sponsored

Copyright © 1999 to Present - ISPreview.co.uk - All Rights Reserved - Terms , Privacy and Cookie Policy , Links , Website Rules , Contact
Mastodon